On Sat, 4 Aug 2001 05:27:20 +0000 (UTC), in comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica you wrote:
>suddenly I get a huge syntax error looking something like this...
I have never been able to confuse the kernel (the reverse is common enough!), but it I have confused the FrontEnd into generating a syntax error whilst I remain blameless :)
The most common "spontaneous" message I get complains about characters that should appear within \(...\) but don't. I can sometimes make the complaint go away by diddling with the first line of the cell.
The most common way I generate this message is to color parts of the text. Even after you return the color black, you can still leave potentially confusing artifacts behind. Recursive option removal clears this up.
As I recall, when similar issues have been raised before, Wolfram has recommended that you set
ShortBoxForm->False
in the Options Inspector. But I don't do this because I've learned to work around the problem.
Tom